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Tuesday, 6 March 2018

Chairman Xi's Bipolar Disorder?

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”

Mao Zedong

President-for-Life Xi

Alphen,
Netherlands. 6 March. Two things concern me about President Xi Jingping’s China
this week and can best be summarised as a lot of rubber-stamping. First, at a
meeting this week the rubber-stamp National People’s Congress is expected to
scrap presidential term limits. Second, the Congress will further rubber-stamp
the decision of President Xi to further increase the Chinese defence budget by
8.1% to an official $175 billion per annum.Whilst that figure pales alongside the $600 billion or so the US spends each
year on defence, China’s actual defence expenditure is probably far higher than
the official figure suggests, as many new defence projects are not included in
the defence budget.

President
Xi’s move to enshrine himself as President-for-Life at least has a greater ring
of political honesty to it than the electoral manipulations of that other
strategic autocrat-for-life Russia’s President Putin.Still, past experience in China and elsewhere
suggests this landmark decision does not bode well for the Celestial Empire,
the Asia-Pacific region, or the wider world.Indeed, President Xi’s consolidation of his personal power in the
age-old name of ‘stability’ suggests not only the creation of a new power dynasty
in China, but also hints at a return to the bad old days under Chairman Mao when
de facto one man rule led to deadly extremes,
such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Political
Legitimacy Chinese Style

Among
contemporary China’s many achievements are its relative stability and growing
prosperity. Since the 1989 massacre of students in Tiananmen Square the Chinese
Communist Party has also enjoyed a strange (by Western standards) kind of
political legitimacy.This was achieved
by offering the burgeoning Chinese middle class prosperity in return for their unquestioning
acceptance of the Party’s political supremacy.Such ‘legitimacy’ has been further reinforced by strict term limits on
office for the procession of grey men who have led China in the intervening
years. Now, with President Xi’s power grab (for that is what it is) that
legitimacy is again open to question, and it will be interesting to see how a
changing China adapts.

For a time
President Xi’s personal supremacy may well buttress ‘stability’ within China.
However, past experience in China, the Soviet Union/Russia and elsewhere
suggests that over time such a retreat from what limited political legitimacy existed
in China will be covered by the fostering of a personality cult which will
doubtless increase the distance between this ‘Princeling of the Party’ and the
people. There is also a danger that Xi’s move will further reinforce a tendency
towards more nationalism and militarism in Beijing.

A Revolution
in Chinese Military Affairs

President
Xi’s power base is, and has always been the People’s Liberation Army or PLA.
For decades the Chinese armed forces were essentially designed to assure the control
of the Party within China, and assure the borders from threats without China.China’s foreign military adventures were
relatively limited, strategically-constrained and close to China itself.Then Peking intervened in the Korean War in
1950 against US-led United Nations forces, fought and won a short border war
with India in 1962, and in 1969 entered a border conflict with its ‘fraternal’
Communist partner, the Soviet Union. Chinese forces also entered Cambodia and
Vietnam in the late 1970s.Today,
China’s strategic ambitions extend far beyond its neighbouring region, as exemplified
by Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

A revolution
in Chinese military affairs is also underway. Beijing’s now smaller (2 million),
leaner and more agile Armed Forces are currently taking possession of a whole
raft of power projection military capabilities, including new aircraft carriers
and nuclear attack submarines, whilst at the same time exploiting space-based
and other advanced technologies, such as cyber and artificial intelligence.The People’s Liberation Navy is fast
developing into the main regional challenger to the United States Navy. The PLN
also has global ambitions, as the joint 2016 exercise in the Baltic Sea with
the Russian Navy revealed.Like the
emergence of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Imperial Germany Navy from 1898 onwards which had
but one purpose, to challenge the might of the then Royal Navy, it is clear
that the PLN is also being prepared with one military-strategic purpose in mind;
if Beijing so decides to one day fight and defeat the United States Navy.

Now, China has as much right to invest in such forces as any
Western country. However, the strategy behind such investments must be of
concern to both neighbours and the rest of us. First, Beijing has shown scant
‘might is right’ regard for international law by employing a host of spurious
claims to illegally-seize and militarise a string of islands in the South China
Sea.The strategic aim is clear; to turn
one of the most lucrative trading routes in the world into China’s Mare Nostrum.Next month, like something out of a Gilbert
and Sullivan operetta, the ageing Royal Navy Type-23 frigate HMS Sutherland will conduct a ‘freedom
of navigation’ exercise in the South China Sea. Regrettably, and in spite of
some talk of a new Asia-Pacific focussed Franco-British alliance, far from
being impressed the Chinese will no doubt conclude it is an exercise in British
strategic pretence, and that the under-funded Royal Navy poses little or no
threat to China. Expect Beijing to ignore the ship.

Chinese Might
is not always Right

However, it
is the mid-to-long term consequences of President Xi’s ‘might is right’
strategy both at home and abroad that should most concern the West. History
suggests that autocratic, one-man regimes sooner or later resort to adventurism
when the political and economic going inevitably gets tough. This is what
President Putin did when he attacked Ukraine in 2014 after falling oil and gas
prices undermined his domestic political and economic strategy and threatened
the Kremlin’s control.

For as long
as the Chinese Communist Party continues to deliver prosperity to the Chinese
middle class and the wider country it is likely that the Party’s grip on power
will endure.And, as long as China can
continue to feed off Western technologies via strategic investments in companies
in debt-ridden European and other countries, China will see no reason to become
overly aggressive. And yet there are clear dangers implied by such investments.
Last week it was discovered that Chinese investment in a small British
semi-conductor company may have helped Beijing to develop a new naval ‘super-gun’
that will soon pose a distinct threat to US carrier battlegroups.

The dilemma
for Beijing, as one Chinese official once told me during a visit, is that China
has to grow at at least 8% per annum simply for the economy and prosperity to
stand still. Sooner or later such growth will cease, a prospect made more
likely by China’s burgeoning corporate debt. Sooner or later the militarised super-presidency
of President-for-Life Xi could well seek to bolster its power domestically by
further embellishing its nationalist credentials. In such circumstances Taiwan
(the Crimea of Asia-Pacific?) would be first in the firing line, closely
followed by Japan and South Korea, something that that other President-for-Life
Kim Jong-un has no doubt considered.

Chairman Xi’s
Bipolar Disorder?

There is
another even greater danger, or rather combination of dangers that really worry
me about President Xi’s power-grab, which could threaten the world order.The defining strategic relationship for much
of the twenty-first century will be that between the United States and
China.They are the two power poles
around which other lesser powers are already coalesced or coalescing.It is a complex relationship and that could
spawn a dangerous bipolar (dis) order, particularly if China and Russia define
their relationship as inherently anti-Western.

In some respects
the world is already beginning to look eerily like Europe in the first decade
of the twentieth century when the Triple
Entente of the British, French and Russian Empires, ‘balanced’ the Dual Alliance of Imperial Germany and
the Austro-Hungarian Empire.Whilst this
was an essentially European-focused power struggle it had global reach because
of empire.Given the West itself is now
an idea rather than a place with liberal democracies the world-over, and
centred on the American system of alliances, the threat of systemic conflict
can no longer be ruled out. Indeed, whilst Russia may pose a regional threat to
certain NATO and EU members, in combination with China that threat becomes a
wholly different ball-game, particularly for the Americans.

It is a
threat compounded by the West itself. First, too many debt-ridden Europeans seem
only too willing to see the ‘opportunities’ afforded by rich China, but at the
same time refuse to recognise the risks that an increasingly autocratic and
aggressive China poses.Second,
President Trump seems more interested in disrupting the West than reinforcing
it.This most idiosyncratic of American
presidents this week decided to threaten trade wars with most of his major allies
so, apparently, he can secure an improved NAFTA. Sadly, at times the White
House seems more interested in disaggregating the very system of alliances that
helped make America great. Alliance which America will again need if Washington
is to reassert the very considered leadership that was, is, and always will be
the true source of American greatness.

A Global
Triple Track

Is war with
China inevitable? Certainly not. Having worked with seasoned diplomats and
practitioners over many years I have learnt that the expectation of the worst
is the surest fire way to guarantee it.And,
whilst I harbour profound concerns about the direction of travel of the Xi
regime, it is vital the West continues to talk to Beijing.Beijing is not simply a richer and more
powerful version of Putin’s Russia, and because a set of circumstance and
patterns of power occurred in the past they are by no means doomed to reassert
themselves in the future.

Rather,
Americans and Europeans should seek strategic balance in their respective
engagements with Beijing.Deterrence,
defence and dialogue were the triple themes in a narrative that emphasised just
such a need for strategic balance in the GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Initiative, for
which I had the honour to be Lead Writer.Realising such balance demands that Europeans see their security and
defence not just in regional, but global terms. It also demands of Europeans a
willingness to better support, albeit not uncritically, Washington’s lead in
dealing with Xi’s China if they want the Americans to continue to underpin
Europe’s own security and defence.

All of the above will certainly demand that
Europeans finally get serious about their twenty-first century defence and invest
sensibly, although not excessively, in such a defence.Equally, Europeans also have something to
contribute in ensuring Xi’s China maintains a nuanced understanding of the
contemporary West. Indeed, it is precisely the bloc-forming experience of
Europeans prior to the First and Second World Wars, and during the Cold War
that places Europeans in a responsible position to promote dialogue with China,
whatever past imperial insults Europeans have committed.

What is
happening in Beijing this week is a cause for concern. Equally, Beijing is
inherently cautious and remains for the moment open to dialogue, particularly
if it believes an adversary respects its legitimate interests and has the power
and coherence to counter its own ambitions.

Therefore, President
Xi’s bipolar disorder is not a given.However, to paraphrase one of the Roosevelt’s the global West together,
Europeans included, should speak softly, politely and firmly to President Xi, and
help America carry not just its big stick, but its many burdens.It would also help if America learnt again to
speak softly. Over to you, Mr President.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.